Observing the Readercon situation
Short version: Author Genevieve Valentine attended Readercon and was repeatedly harassed by a big name fan called Rene Walling. Readercon has a publicly-stated zero-tolerance policy for harassment, and anyone guilty of harassment is supposed to receive a lifetime ban from the convention. Readercon has enforced this policy strictly in the past. In this case, after a two-week investigation, they've announced that they're banning Walling for only two years.
Yep, they failed. Completely failed.
Predictably they are getting spanked pretty thoroughly by the fannish community. Didn't I just say something about waiting for the community to mature? Oh right: " Social growth and change take iterations of transgression, dialog, and healing. Sometimes helping someone grow up takes the infliction of a spanking. Spank away, internets. The culture needs it." Apparently the community continues to prove that spanking is needed. What a shame.
I had an exchange with an author on Facebook about all this, who asserted that neurology (men are helpless before evolution and neurology, and someone will always transgress as a result) and fannish politics (if the transgressor is a BNF, he'll get off with a slap on the wrist because other BNFs want to retain their social cache) mean that harassment and inappropriate responses to same by concoms would always perpetuate an unsafe environment. I asserted that perhaps this heirarchy of status over safety was screwed up and could be changed; he persisted in his assertion that there was nothing we could do to change it. After a while I decided the debate was fruitless and walked away. It's that kind of thinking that will perpetuate such an environment.
What impressed me about the FB exchange is that it was all very civilized, nuanced, and sophisticated--we were talking, after all, about neurology and sociology. That makes it all so reasonable. But it's the Peacock phenomenon all over again (see the spanking link, above): I have demonstrated that I have brains therefore I couldn't possibly be wrong. And Readercon took what they thought were reasonable actions and made a bad decision anyway.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Someone, someone show me evidence of positive social evolution please. I need a little reaffirmation of positive change on the front of a discussion rather than in hindsight.
Yep, they failed. Completely failed.
Predictably they are getting spanked pretty thoroughly by the fannish community. Didn't I just say something about waiting for the community to mature? Oh right: " Social growth and change take iterations of transgression, dialog, and healing. Sometimes helping someone grow up takes the infliction of a spanking. Spank away, internets. The culture needs it." Apparently the community continues to prove that spanking is needed. What a shame.
I had an exchange with an author on Facebook about all this, who asserted that neurology (men are helpless before evolution and neurology, and someone will always transgress as a result) and fannish politics (if the transgressor is a BNF, he'll get off with a slap on the wrist because other BNFs want to retain their social cache) mean that harassment and inappropriate responses to same by concoms would always perpetuate an unsafe environment. I asserted that perhaps this heirarchy of status over safety was screwed up and could be changed; he persisted in his assertion that there was nothing we could do to change it. After a while I decided the debate was fruitless and walked away. It's that kind of thinking that will perpetuate such an environment.
What impressed me about the FB exchange is that it was all very civilized, nuanced, and sophisticated--we were talking, after all, about neurology and sociology. That makes it all so reasonable. But it's the Peacock phenomenon all over again (see the spanking link, above): I have demonstrated that I have brains therefore I couldn't possibly be wrong. And Readercon took what they thought were reasonable actions and made a bad decision anyway.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Someone, someone show me evidence of positive social evolution please. I need a little reaffirmation of positive change on the front of a discussion rather than in hindsight.